Unpredictable words and occasional audio

Power of Twitter #3: Personalised hashtags

I applied for a job that involved social media things. For one reason and another, I didn’t get it. It’s a shame, I’m learning the lessons about interviews, but only by making the mistakes first. I was a bit sad about the job, because I knew it was something that I could do, and do well, but that’s life.

So what do you do when you’re feeling down about not getting that social media job you wanted? You turn to social media to cheer you up. And so it was that the ‘operationcheerkateup’ hashtag was born. Not only did I get sent smile-inducing videos of orphaned sloths, cute kittens on a slide, golf-ball stealing foxes and a song about axolotls but the fact that so many lovely people bothered to drop me a message, and even adopt the hashtag themselves made me smile. I may not have got the job, but I must be doing something right if complete strangers take a moment out of their day to help cheer me up. Thank you.

In the very same week, I planned to surprise my grandmother by turning up on her doorstep on her 88th birthday and hand-delivering her card, flowers and cake. My granny is so wonderful that I want to share her with the world – and have done, by persuading her to read out the poem ‘When I am old, I shall wear purple’. For her birthday, I wondered if people might join me in sending many happy returns. I started the ‘granny88’ hashtag and asked people to record an Audioboo for her. Amazingly, people did it – and she was thrilled with the selection of messages from all round England, Northern Ireland and Wales. So thank you to everyone who took the time to record or simply tweet a message for her, she really enjoyed them and recorded her own little message for you here.